Archibou and AI: what we do (and will never do)
In short: today, no AI analyses your photos. AI helped us build the app, but it has never seen your files, and never will. If we ever offer a sorting helper, it will never send your photos to an external service that would harvest them.
Today: no AI on your files
Your photos are simply stored, in original quality, on our servers in France. They are not analysed, automatically sorted, or used to train a model.
Concretely:
- No facial recognition or automatic tagging
- No analysis of your image content
- No AI training on your memories
- No sending of your files to a third party
Your files stay private: the Archibou team does not access them, and even less so the development tools used to build the app.
Yes, AI helped us build Archibou
To be transparent: the mobile app (and part of the website) were coded with the assistance of generative AI tools. Like a good proofreader, or a peer reviewing code, faster.
This is an important distinction: AI was a building tool, it is not part of the product. These tools have never had access to your photos, and never will.
What about tomorrow?
Maybe one day we will offer a little help finding your photos, for example recognising people, the dominant colour or the scene type (beach, mountains, family).
If that happens, here are our red lines:
- Never generative: we will not create images or content in your place
- Never an external service that would harvest your photos to analyse or train on them
- We're reluctant to move your photos out of where they are, on your devices: any processing we might offer would therefore run only locally, on your device
- Always off by default: our customers' informed consent matters to us
We will stay true to our model: you pay a transparent subscription, we don't need your data to make a living.
Why it's different elsewhere
With most tech giants, your photos are analysed by default for facial recognition or to improve their models, often without real control on your side. That's tied to their business model, based on data and advertising.
At Archibou it's the opposite: hosting in France, based on open source software, no compression, no resale, and at a fair price. AI won't change that promise.